Free e-books of sailing/boating/etc ???

I have had a Sony e reader now for a couple of years and its good for reading but useless when you want to view diagrams and photos. The photos are all black and white and it is impossible to increase the size of any diagram.

I don't know if the Kindle is any different but I suspect not.
 
Diagrams

I downloaded a sample of Nigel Calder's "Boatowner's mechanical...." from Kindle store to see if it was worth buying as an eBook. I'd say that it is a LOT more limited than the paper version regarding diagrams but searching will be better.

Decided that it wasn't worth buying as an eBook.

Diagrams and pictures can be quite small and Kindle only seems to resize the text in the sample chapter. So even when text is huge the picture remains at the same size.

I also tried loading a PDF file and Kindle allows "Zoom" on these but not on mainly text eBooks (mobi, ePub). However, the Zoom is quite clunky to use and nowhere near as good as using my old iPAQ PDA to view (even with smaller screen).

Perhaps someone else has a workaround to improve viewing of diagrams in eBooks.
 
NDH said:
You could try this link

http://www.manybooks.net/categories/NAU/1
Click to expand...


Like the link investigating more :cool:

On kindle and probably others

One Freebie I think is essential:
South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1817

Other freebies
Captain cooks Journal first voyage - I am finding these interesting but heavy.
Windjammers and sea tramps

Paid but I enjoyed: Merchant Navy Hero's and Half-wits

Any more particularly historical and non fiction for me keep them coming :D
 
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dleroc said:
I have had a Sony e reader now for a couple of years and its good for reading but useless when you want to view diagrams and photos. The photos are all black and white and it is impossible to increase the size of any diagram.

I don't know if the Kindle is any different but I suspect not.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the Kindle is slightly better, as it does have some limited zoom capability. However, I agree that e-readers in general are not the answer for books with lots of pictures and diagrams, and certainly I wouldn't consider buying something like an electrical manual in Kindle format.

For text-only books I am a big user and a happy customer.

Pete
 
dleroc said:
I have had a Sony e reader now for a couple of years and its good for reading but useless when you want to view diagrams and photos. The photos are all black and white and it is impossible to increase the size of any diagram.

I don't know if the Kindle is any different but I suspect not.
Click to expand...

That is not the case with current Sony readers as the Sony PRS-T1 reader in fact has very good zoom capability with pdf files, including multitouch so one can just pinch to shrink, or unpinch fingers on the screen to expand.

It is correct that good readers only do black and white due to the nature of their e-ink paper displays for ease of reading. To get colour in any high quality form one needs to go to at least a tablet but they remain significantly inferior for reading text compared to an e-ink device.

On any reader if a pdf is not formatted to reflow properly or it is just image data (i.e. the "text" pages are not text but are images of text; unlikely for a purchased or correctly constructed book, generally only the case where someone has constructed the book from scanned pages from a paper book) then there will likely be problems on any reader including on PC's. The pdf format is a dog and also has the difficulty that because of its complexity it does not convert accurately to later more modern formats such as epub or in the case of the Kindle to mobi).

A major current problem with the Kindle is that without converting them it does not read epub files which have fast become the standard, replacing pdf, especially for eBook libraries, free and purchased books.
 
onesea said:
Any more particularly historical and non fiction for me keep them coming :D
Click to expand...

Try 'The Sea and the Jungle' by H.M.Tomlinson

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37205

Non-fiction account of the voyage of a tramp steamer carrying a cargo of machinery and steelwork from UK to South America and then a few hundred miles up the Amazon, to where a railway (never to be completed) was being built.
 
I got this Slocum book 'Sailing alone around the world' for my 'new for christmas' Kindle ,from Amazon. Whilst the text of the book was perfectly readable the diagrams and photos and sketches are all missing from it, which diminished the pleasure of the read.

I haven't yet bought but am considering Edward C Allcard's 'Singlehanded Passage', and the follow up 'Temptress Returns' ;both books I owned years ago and excellent reads.
There is another one listed on Amazon also by him, but the title of this newer one I don't have to hand.
As a lad I met Edward Allcard in Gibraltar immediately prior to his crossing so some hero worship for me!

ianat182
 
ianat182 said:
I got this Slocum book 'Sailing alone around the world' for my 'new for christmas' Kindle ,from Amazon. Whilst the text of the book was perfectly readable the diagrams and photos and sketches are all missing from it, which diminished the pleasure of the read.
Click to expand...

I have wondered about that. Gutenberg usually offers Kindle versions with and without images. I always choose 'with images' but mostly don't get them.

For example:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6317

ps I just checked and the images are present in the ebook in my Download folder but they don't survive the drag & drop from there to the Kindle.
 
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I've just been reading 'A White Boat from England' - an account of a cruise from Lymington, via Gibraltar, to the Mediterranean by the Scottish author George Millar (and his wife).

Really good read and available for the kindle and on pdf for free from the Universal Library Project http://www.archive.org/details/whiteboatfromeng009337mbp

(The book's out of print and difficult to find so it's quite lucky somebody has decided to put it online, it might be out of copyright?)
 
semisimple said:
I've just been reading 'A White Boat from England' - an account of a cruise from Lymington, via Gibraltar, to the Mediterranean by the Scottish author George Millar (and his wife).

Really good read and available for the kindle and on pdf for free from the Universal Library Project http://www.archive.org/details/whiteboatfromeng009337mbp

(The book's out of print and difficult to find so it's quite lucky somebody has decided to put it online, it might be out of copyright?)
Click to expand...

That's a good book. I have it in 'real' book form . Another good book by Millar is 'Oyster River'. It describes a season cruising in the Golfe de Morbihan in a 24-ton yawl 'Amokura'. This boat had no engine and was sailed by him and his small wife with no extra crew.

http://www.sailing-boats-for-sale.com/sail_boat_231918.aspx
 
parsifal said:
ps I just checked and the images are present in the ebook in my Download folder but they don't survive the drag & drop from there to the Kindle.
Click to expand...

Could this be because the images are in a separate file? Try looking for a related file in your downloads folder.

If your downloads folder looks anything like mine, that won't work. :rolleyes:

Create a new folder and download again to the new folder. If there's more than one file there, you have your answer.
 
SEMISIMPLE - Thanks for the reference to 'Sailing a White boat from England' I've viewed it on my PC and spent 6 enjoyable hours doing so, now to find the follow-up by Millar!!
Within the book he mentions a ketch called the' Winnibelle' whose sailing book I read many years ago, so may renew my acquaintance with that one too.
As an aside I was a crew member on a former Admiralty HDML (but a non-smuggler)and cruising the same waters and ports at about the same time as Mr Millar, but ,as we were painted grey we may have been included with the non-cruising fleet- even with our defaced blue ensign!!

ianat182
 
If images are missing on your kindle, are you using Calibre as e-book manager? It's a great programme and it's free. It also converts epub files into files that can be read on the kindle which makes a lot more books available.

Using Calibre might transfer all the functionality of the gutenberg ebook rather than a simple drag and drop
 
Burnham Bob said:
If images are missing on your kindle, are you using Calibre as e-book manager? It's a great programme and it's free. It also converts epub files into files that can be read on the kindle which makes a lot more books available.

Using Calibre might transfer all the functionality of the gutenberg ebook rather than a simple drag and drop
Click to expand...

That's got to be worth a try. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
ianat182 said:
SEMISIMPLE - Thanks for the reference to 'Sailing a White boat from England' I've viewed it on my PC and spent 6 enjoyable hours doing so, now to find the follow-up by Millar!!
Within the book he mentions a ketch called the' Winnibelle' whose sailing book I read many years ago, so may renew my acquaintance with that one too.
As an aside I was a crew member on a former Admiralty HDML (but a non-smuggler)and cruising the same waters and ports at about the same time as Mr Millar, but ,as we were painted grey we may have been included with the non-cruising fleet- even with our defaced blue ensign!!

ianat182
Click to expand...

I think Winnibelle was the name of his first boat that he sailed from the UK to the Med via the French canals just after WWII. Described in his book 'Isobel and the Sea'
 
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